So...
I have/had a friend who lives in Greater London in the UK. While we are both from the Eastern US, we went in different directions (literally!) after college. We were a vanilla item in the past, with her out and me not. Neither of us had much in common at the time both in our personalities and political and professional outlooks. In a way that is increasingly uncommon now, however, we could have big disagreements regarding political and social issues while enjoying coffee and lighter chatter. Weirdly, we stayed in contact for the years after college with her being a contact for me as I went through the (mostly self-inflicted) travails of coming out.
While she went to London to follow someone else, that eventually fell through. She is/was a (part time) sex worker that worked for what they called a "dungeon" in the area. Her name is M. After the events below, over the last couple of years, I have largely lost contact with her.
To condense a lot of noise into a few sentences, when she was alone and just gigging it and I was socially isolated due to a new sexual outlook and physically isolated due to my work, traveling in the empty regions of the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains, we hooked up together several times in furtive hotel rendezvous in major cities that we would both fly into. She, of course, took the lead and I was flattered to learn that she had always crushed on me a bit in university. Through her, I gained a measure of sexual confidence.
We had gotten friendly past just having sex and I felt comfortable enough to ask her about establishing a D/s relationship. To absolutely no one's surprise, my sub tendencies came to the fore since she had taken my hand and taken the lead. For a variety of reasons, mainly because we were friends and I asked in such a clumsy way, it did not work.
Over the course of a couple of years after she was back living in London and I was still in North America, I complained to her about my unsatisfied fantasies. And she encouraged me to "get out there." I was a sad little whinger and just talked and talked and complained.
Finally, apparently she had had enough and almost an entire year after our last encounter, she strongly requested that I stop by her place of work. Or one of them. She wasn't going to be there (!) but she wanted me to meet "someone." I had never been to England at that point. If I was really interested in kink, I should go, but the ball was in my court.
In perhaps one of the most daring moves of my life, I resolved to do this. I flew over and we spent three days together before she left for Germany. I never saw any place she worked actually with her. On the last night together, she told me she had made arrangements for me to go to her primary work location - a professional "dungeon."
OK, then. Deep breath. I paced around the hotel and finally worked up the nerve to do it despite being almost sick with anxiety over it.
I drove to this commercial area near one of the airports. I looked a bit foolish (so I thought) in my "job interview" clothes. In fact, I remember being in a pencil skirt, blouse and comfy shoulder cover. Hardly vamp!
I found myself talking to an older woman in an office, almost like a waiting room. Very Spartan. Happily, we were alone and, after a couple of questions, she asked me to wait in a room just off from there. I went into a room with a sofa, some soft chairs, and a sink. Dimly lit. She closes the door behind me. I see that there is another door on the other side of the room. And I waited...
After I straightened myself in the mirror a couple of times, I wondered what was going on. I was feeling (of course) nervous but also excited and nothing had been (yet) off-putting to me. I made myself comfortable on the sofa and was keeping my hands busy with my phone as I tend to do.
There's a little rap on the door and it opens slightly. A very cute and very bleached tosseled head pops into view, all smiles.
"You are ___, yes?"
"Yes."
"You're a tad tardy, you know."
"No, I'm not. Are you...?"
I don't remember what I was going to ask at this point. But she just laughed and said, "No, not me. I am not your match tonight."
She comes farther into the room, and I can see she is just an itty-bitty thing, shorter than me even. I remember being disappointed. Then I see she is holding a leash in her hand and is pulling on something.
With a squeaky voice and that wonderful "proper" accent, she says something like, "Come now, in here please. This will be something that you enjoy."